This invention concerns the mass production of coils, particularly for electrical applications. More particularly, it relates to a coil winding installation and a method for automatically changing the wire in such an installation.
The winding operation consists of winding, over a core or nucleus, a wire usually made of enameled copper and coming from a mother coil known as a "feeder" with intermediate passage in a wire tension regulator known as a "supply coil". Winding is done over a revolving spindle which carries the core and is equipped with appropriate tooling.
The mass production of coils usually takes place on multi-spindle machines, generally with six, eight, twelve, eighteen or even more spindles, these spindles working in parallel, which implies the presence of as many feeders and supply coils working also in parallel as there are spindles. The feeders and supply coils are generally carried by a common structure known as a "supply table".
In this kind of industrial operation, the current criteria for production and profitability, for example short runs, "just in time" production, flexible shop, etc., call for very frequent changes in the type of coil to be produced.
The necessary changeover operations are very time consuming. This essentially concerns the change in the type of wire, on the supply table, for a rapid change of the tools on the spindles has already been relatively well worked out. Thus, the change of wire is done purely manually at this time and, for example, for a twelve spindle coil winding unit, it may require more than a half-hour during which time production is suspended. Furthermore, this task is particularly cumbersome and unprofitable.